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Woodcock shooting is a somewhat hidden activity – few birders, I think, realise the scale of shooting with something like 160,000 birds being shot each year. The UK population is around 110,000 birds in spring (based on there being c55,000 males) and so if all Woodcock shot in the UK were UK-bred the population wouldn’t…

April Fools’ Day can be a minefield. There’s a great story of a young reporter rushing to their editor having swallowed a brillient RSPB April Fool story of a Polar Bear being washed up in the Hebrides one year… But yesterday, did you pause for thought when you saw;

RSPB Scotland launches UK’s first eagle nest camera feed at Loch Garten Nature Centre In what has been hailed as a first for the UK, a new live camera feed at RSPB Scotland’s Loch Garten Nature Centre is giving visitors an up-close look at Scotland’s largest bird of prey.  A pair of white-tailed eagles, Shona…

This is an interesting book – a translation of a book by the Kazakh poet Yessengali Raushanov who died last year. The book is organised by species, over 30 species of bird, many of which are familiar to a UK audience, with a few extra bird-related essays included too. One learns something of the folklore,…

On Friday a new scientific analysis of the effectiveness of Badger culls on reducing bovine tuberculosis in cattle was published. I knew this paper was coming and knew that it would be greeted with acclaim by those who oppose the cull and derision by those who support it, and that has largely been true. The…